Still My Brother
by Senshi Sun
Summary: Cat Valentine's brother has always been different. When he's happy, he's ecstatic, when he's sad, he's dismal, and when he's mad, he's the most frightening thing ever. Despite that, Cat can never bring herself to hate him. Valentine family relations. Oneshot.


I'm in my room. It's very happy in here, with the pink walls, Christmas lights, and fuzzy things. Paper stars are strung up on my walls. Stuffed animals sit in all the corners of my room. My favorite ones stay on my bed, and Mr. Cuddles, the pink pig shaped like a C, hangs over my bed. He's my big, fluffy dream-catcher. My room may look weird to some people, but I like it. It's different. Every other part of the house is dark and dull. The paint is chipped, the pillows are stained, and it's not unusual to find little bits of glass or plaster strewn around.

Right now, I'm doing my homework. My math teacher, Mr. Doty The Fourth, has us do math equations once a week. It's really boring, but I have to do it. If I don't, I lose out on acting class and I really like acting class. Acting class is way more fun than math class. I have to push through the boring math stuff to get to my acting stuff, so here I am, doing polynomials. And yea, Mr. Doty The Fourth is my teacher's real name, but I think he likes it spelled Doty IV. His first name is George.

Dang it, I got distracted! I turn my attention back to the polynomials. If 2X+5Y-3Z equals 39, what are X, Y, and Z? I know they're letters but they've got to equal a number. After a lot of thinking and moving numbers around, I figure out that X is 4, Y is 2, and Z is 7. I move on to the next question. If 5X-10Y+6Z equals twen-

Oh no. The yelling has started again. It always happens. First, it's the bright but loud voice of my mom. Then, there's the low, gruff voice of my dad. Finally, the most dreaded voice sounds, a voice roughened by years of baby colic and worn out even more by yelling in later years. It's my brother's voice- my big, mean brother's voice. I drop my pencil on the floor. The yelling is loud, and I hate it. I close my bedroom door carefully, so he can't hear the peg click into its little hole in the wall. Once that's done, I dive under my bed.

It's comfy under my bed. I always make sure it's clean under here in case of emergencies like this. When my brother gets mad, he gets really mad, and I have to hide from him somehow. He's like a movie monster in a way- he never thinks to look under the bed.

Not that I'm saying my brother's a monster or anything. He can be really nice sometimes. He has dreams and goals and good days and bad days just like any other human being. Except, well, his are a little bigger. His dreams are huge, wild, and a bit nonsensical. His goals are always feats of wonder. When he's happy, he's like a little kid, always laughing and smiling. When he's sad, he can go into a back room and cry for hours on end. And when he's mad, like right now, he's really, really mad. He storms up the steps, making each one shudder and shake. He slams his hand against walls and doors, sometimes punching holes in the drywall. He bellows as he walks.

Right now he's yelling, "Cat! Cat!" over and over and over.

Cat. That's my name. He must be looking for me. I want to go out and try to calm him down, but nothing I say will work. He'll just get angrier. Believe me- I've tried it before. I don't know why he's mad at me. He just gets mad inside and sometimes that mad comes out. I don't think I did anything recently that would make him mad. I start to get dizzy.

He's banging at my door, hitting it over and over. I crawl to the end of my bed, back to the part where the bed touches the wall. It's dark in this part, but I can still see. I can see the impact my brother is making on my door. I can see the wood starting to splinter. I can see the nails trying to stay in the door hinges. The nails don't last long. The door falls to the ground, making a huge thump. My brother marches into the room and I feel the world around me grow dimmer. He's still yelling my name. Then, suddenly, he stops. I see his big, heavy hand reach under the bed. The world goes black.

When I wake up, my back hurts, my feet hurt, and my arm hurts. I can feel a rough hardwood floor, a thin broom handle leaning against my arm, and two walls really close to each other. It takes my eyes a while to get used to the darkness. Once I can see again, I know exactly where I am. I am in the downstairs closet. I press my ear against the door to see if my brother's still around.

It's quiet. Good.

I push on the door so I can make a run for it, but the door won't move. My brother must have locked it. There's nothing I can do now but sit here and wait until somebody finds me. I rub my arm, which will probably turn purple by the time I get out of here, if it's not purple already. I lean my head against the wall. My hair brushes against the door handle, and some of it catches in the door frame. I have to get my hair out in the dark, but I manage to do it.

My brother wasn't always like this. He used to be friendly and happy. He would run around and play with all the other kids. He was a little overenthusiastic, but every kid is at that age. In the summer, when all the other kids had lemonade stands, he would have a Tinkle-Aid stand. He made it with his own special recipe. Sometimes I would have to watch his stand for him while he made more. When he was in school, he did really well, even though he got in trouble a few times. He made a lot of friends at school. Most of his friends were troublemakers too, but they didn't do anything too awful.

My parents began to see something was wrong with my brother when he was ten years old. That was when my brother got arrested for the first time. He'd been yelling more than usual before that and my parents were really worried about him. We took him to a psychiatrist who said he had some "mental issues". We tried to give him medication, but that didn't work too well. I wanted to help him so I got him a turtle that also had problems. I thought they could be problem buddies. He seemed to like the turtle, but otherwise he kept getting worse. He got into fights and kept getting arrested. His mood swings got larger and larger as he grew. These mood swings are still there. They cause him to flood the house, torture our cousin Jessie, dump chicken parts on a delivery boy, and sometimes, lock me in the closet.

If I had something to pick locks with I would be able to get out of here on my own. My brother showed me how to pick a lock using a hairpin. I don't have any with me now. They're all in my theatre makeup bag. I start to look through the closet. Maybe there is something in here I can use as a pick. I reach into the dustpan and find a long, thin piece of metal. A little light coming in from under the door frame hits the metal. The reflection from the metal makes shadows go away. I insert the metal piece into the lock and jiggle it around.

The lock clicks. I turn the knob and the door swings open. I'm free!

I immediately crawl out of that tiny space. My hands brush against the debris from his latest rampage. Scraps of fabric from pillowcases still are fluttering down over the couch. White, fluffy pillow feathers cover the hallway floor like snow. A thick cord of rope ties our family pictures together. Mud is splattered over everything. Our front door hangs open. It's held up by one nail and a kitchen chair.

I hear a giggle coming from the living room, and go over to investigate. There he is. My brother is sitting in the middle of the living room. He's playing with an apple like a kitten plays with a ball of string. I should bring his turtle downstairs for him so they can play together. He'd like that.

My brother may seem weird, awkward, or even evil, but you know what? He's still my brother, and I'm always going to love him, no matter what he does.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This is my first published Victorious fanfic, although it's not the first I have written. I think Cat's relationship with her brother is interesting, so I wrote this to try to explain what I think the relationship is like. Thanks to all the people at the Victorious Wiki for compiling the information about Cat's brother.

If you enjoyed this, please review it or tell your friends about it. I'm sure your friends would like it too.


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